Minister for Interior Prof Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said that China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was making tremendous progress with the completion of infrastructure and energy projects and time was ripe to reap benefits from the major initiative.

The Chinese investment, technology and Pakistani location with low production cost combined together made a winning combination, he said while addressing a national conference here on 'Changing Security in South Asia and Development of CPEC'. Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) and Hanns Seidel Foundation organized the two-day conference.

The minister said through various energy projects power shortage would be overcome, which was the first prerequisite of industrial development. “The present government has ensured generation of 10,000 MW electricity as compared to 16,000 MW, which was generated during 66 years. The energy security would ensure economic security for the country,” Ahsan Iqbal, who is also Minister for Planning Development and Reforms, said.

“In the past, the country was facing 20-hour long electricity shortages. Now electricity is available 20 hours a day.” Ahsan Iqbal said development and improved standard of living was not possible without peace, stability and harmony. The world had entered the information age and countries are competing for economic ascendancy. “If there is a conflict, then the development process gets stalled,” he maintained.

He said the second requirement of industrial development was strong infrastructure and in coming years the Gwadar port would also have further improved infrastructure through road and modern airport. As for peace and security, a requirement for industrial investment and development, he mentioned that the government had taken solid steps to improve the security situation in country.

Ahsan Iqbal said with the momentum of CPEC a world of opportunities had opened up setting fundamentals of industrial cooperation between Pakistan and China, fast in place. “Pakistan was committed to peace in the region and would not allow anybody to use its soil for terrorism,” he said and added the government was working in coordination with other governments to promote regional peace. He said only a strong economy with favorable environment would ensure development and prosperity.

The minister said Pakistan had defeated terrorism and now its economy, sports activities and tourism were being revived. He said Pakistan was on the path of recovery, contrary to 2013, when security situation was not well, but now there was renewed optimism and energy. He said as a developing country, Pakistan needed to harness its human and natural resources. It needed to make speedy progress by enhancing cooperation. He said the future belonged to those who blended science with economy and focused on innovation and creativity for achieving development.

Describing the opportunities in Pakistan, he said with a large middle income population, Pakistan was an attractive choice and explained the available opportunities in different sectors of economy. He highlighted their potential to create employment at grass-roots level and asked Chinese businesses to join joint ventures to make win-win platforms for both themselves and Pakistani businessmen so as to develop and maintain goodwill by more mutual and partnership based relationship.

Ahsan Iqbal said CPEC should not be made controversial as it would bring about sustainable prosperity in Pakistan as well as the region. He said there could not be sustained economic growth and development in an environment riven by deep mistrust and long- standing disputes and conflicts. South Asia needed to follow the Chinese ambitions of mutual development and common interests in order to give impetus to vision of shared destinies if the region wanted to become peaceful and prosperous.

Through CPEC, he added, South Asia would cease to be a corridor of conflict and become a corridor of cooperation. “But for this we need to continue engagement at all levels and remain firmly resolute in our commitment to peace,” he said, adding CPEC was a collaborative project between the two most reliable partners in the world – Pakistan and China – especially given their time-tested friendship.

The minister said think-tanks, academics, business leaders around the globe were engaged in discussing CPEC, which reflected its true potential and importance. South Asians needed to come together and create an enabling environment to embrace security and well-being which CPEC was offering. Under the Vision 2025, he said, the Government of Pakistan had envisaged the country as a hub of trade, commerce and connectivity. “Critics may argue that the government is just building roads, but in reality everything whether it is health services, education, or business needs better connectivity without which nothing is possible.”

In the past, it took two days to travel from Gwadar to Quetta, its own provincial headquarter, and now with the expressway, it took eight hours, he remarked. Pakistan, he said, must learn from China which gave zero space to internal conflicts and focused on political and economic stability.

Speaking on the occasion, Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong said as a flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative, CPEC had entered the stage of early harvest.  “Presently, 19 projects are under construction or completed with a total investment of US $ 19 billion. The CPEC projects have directly created thousands of local jobs. Chinese enterprises always lay emphasis on training the youth talents and actively provide training opportunities,” he said.

Ambassador Sun Weidong said CPEC was the best reflection of the Silk Road Spirit, featuring peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and prosperity. It was a crucial pilot project of the Belt and Road initiative since it had become a leading demonstration in the promotion of B&R as it now entered full implementation stage, making smooth and satisfactory progress.

The ambassador shared that CPEC had cross-border consensus from people of both sides because it followed principles of mutual partnership and peaceful development. He explained that CPEC followed `a new type of international relations based on win-win cooperation by forging partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation, on the basis of friendship rather than alliances.

China, he stressed, wanted to actively promote policy synergies rather than Cold War doctrinal divisions. Providing data on China's future contributions to the world in next five years, he said his country was expected to import goods worth USD 8 trillion, attract foreign investment worth USD 600 billion, and at the same time would be investing USD 750 billion in other countries.

China and South Asia with their collective population of 3 billion people, he said, would be the largest emerging market in the world and with the blueprint of CPEC finally becoming a reality with unprecedented development in four years. The early harvest projects were now reaching fruition and growing like bamboo shoots across Pakistan, he said.

Welcoming delegates to the conference, IPRI President former ambassador Abdul Basit said peace was sine qua non for sustainable development, and Pakistan had always strived for and continued to strive for normal relations with all its neighbors. “Our First Neighbor Policy is driven by national desire to move from conflict management to conflict resolution. History tells us that we cannot build a sustainable and balanced regional cooperative framework on unpredictable and tenuous bilateral relations,” he said.

He expressed the hope that the deliberations would lead to improved understanding of the changing security situation in South Asia and help create synergies for a peaceful region.        In his opening remarks, Omer Ali from the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF), co-organizer of the conference, pointed out that CPEC had put Pakistan in a much stronger negotiating position globally. It was likely to increase direly needed cooperation with other neighboring countries as it would raise many secluded layers of society from abject poverty, he added.

In the session on `Geopolitics of the Region and Development of CPEC' chaired by former ambassador Inamul Haque, Dr. Farhan Hanif Siddiqi of the Quaid-i-Azam University reviewed the geo-politico-economic trends of South Asia vis-a-vis CPEC. He pointed out that the world was witnessing a `cult of the offensive' at the geo-political level and in midst of such seemingly intensifying agendas, CPEC presented a radical break and opportunity to steer South Asia in the direction of mutual cooperation through economic inter-linkages.

He said South Asia could not afford to continue on the path of confrontation and hostility if it wanted to become a powerful economic bloc. Professor Dr. Syed Rifaat Hussain of National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) opined that South Asia was no longer a subordinate system as it had gained greater autonomy.

Discussing the Chinese perspective about South Asian security and CPEC, Dr Fazal-ur-Rahman of National Defence University (NDU) cautioned that Pakistan should not expect Chinese support on issues that go beyond Pak-China relations, and to be mindful that geo-economic projects are likely to have geo-political consequences.

In his presentation on `CPEC: Pakistan's Vision of Maritime Security', Adm (retd) Asaf Humayun, former Director General, National Centre for Maritime Policy Research at the Bahria University, Karachi, outlined that the issues surrounding protection and use of oceans were transboundary in nature and required strong cooperation.

International Islamic University Rector Prof Dr Muhammad Masoom Yasinzai spoke on `CPEC: An Engine to Human Resource Development in Pakistan'. He recommended that Pakistan's institutions of higher learning needed to become more relevant and update their syllabi and even faculty capacities to bridge the human capacity gaps in areas like civil engineering especially railways and tunnels, electrical & instrumentation engineering, architectural planning, supply chain management & business incubation experts, transportation & logistics, industrial electronics, and energy.

Dean, School of Social Sciences, NUST, Prof: Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan said Pakistan's leadership needed to focus on human capital development, particularly towards the institutions of higher learning. He suggested that a pool of skilled manpower in the country in general and Baluchistan in particular needed to be generated.